A Teacher's Journal: Thoughts on Testing

It certainly is a big week in classroom across Wake County where students in most elementary and middle schools are taking the North Carolina End of Grade exams. Few would argue that standardized testing has taken on a new meaning in today's schools as decision makers are increasingly interested in seeing test results used as a measure of student success and teacher evaluation. "High Stakes" is almost an understatement when describing end of grade exams considering that students can be retained---and schools can be punished---based on final results.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Unlike many teachers, I can see several positives in our state's standardized testing program. Most importantly, EOGs have brought a measure of transparency to the work of schools. Our state spends billions of dollars on education and has the right to hold schools and teachers accountable for results. EOG scores are a tangible product that can be used to judge outcomes and to make comparisons.

Standardized tests have also brought some measure of "standardization" to the curriculum that students are exposed to in classrooms across North Carolina. "Teaching to the test" is a very real phenomenon as teachers tailor their instruction to align with the content most likely to be covered by end of grade exams. This consistency allows us to ensure that the intended curriculum---that which has been crafted by our State Board of Education---is actually implemented in classrooms. Before testing, topics covered from room to room varied greatly depending on a child's teacher.

My fears about testing, however, are many.

First, I often wonder whether the content that we are testing is the knowledge that our children will need to know in order to be successful in a rapidly changing future. End of grade exams are limited in scope, tending to test discrete facts and knowledge that can be easily assessed in a multiple choice format. In a time when new content is being created at an almost blinding pace, how can we be sure that what we are asking kids to learn today will not be obsolete tomorrow?

I also worry that testing has narrowed the curriculum for our children. In just the short time that I have been teaching, I've seen class periods in social studies, science and the arts cut dramatically as schools work to make more time for language arts and math---subjects that draw the majority of testing attention in North Carolina. What's more, teachers tend to narrow their work with students, focusing on direct instruction of tested skills. The inventive thinking that has defined our nation is being drilled out of students who are being prepared for the rigid structures of standardized tests.

What's most alarming, however, is that society as a whole has put great stock in the validity of standardized tests as an assessment tool. Insted of recognizing that student learning is a complex and nuanced "product" requiring multiple measures over longer periods of time, we rely on one exam given on one day in one month to tell us whether or not our students have "learned" and our schools were "successful." We make the sophisticated simple without even considering that our assessment tools may be flawed.

Don't get me wrong: I understand---and appreciate---the role that testing plays in education. In many ways, I'm even ashamed that testing is necessary. Had educators accepted the responsibility for ensuring that every child left school with the knowledge and skills to be successful, perhaps the "accountability" movement wouldn't have been necessary at all. In a sense, our profession has failed to police itself and the quality of our work has been called into question.

But testing has its limits---60 multiple choice questions given in a timed, high stakes setting cannot meaningfully measure the sum total of a child's "growth" over the course of an entire school year---and those limits are being overlooked in our rush to quantify the work of schools.

Posted by William Ferriter at 09:27 AM on May 22, 2007 | Leave Feedback

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